1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a copying apparatus, e.g., to an electrophotographic copying machine, and more particularly to a copying apparatus which is capable of copying letters, figures and the like written on a display member, e.g., a blackboard.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
In order to prevent people from doing troublesome work, e.g., transcribing letters, figures and similar characters on notebooks, which characters have previously been written on a display member, e.g., a blackboard used during a conference or lecture, and to prevent mistakes being made during such transcription, copying apparatus has previously been proposed which is capable of directly copying written images from a display member.
For example, letters and other characters are written on an erasable plate-like panel by a felt pen or similar instrument, and the panel, which is held between rollers, is reciprocated upwardly and downwardly to enable letters written on the surface of the panel to be copied.
A recording apparatus has also been proposed in which letters, figures and other characters on a panel are irradiated by light, with the light reflected thereform being read by a reader which includes a pick-up element, e.g., a CCD. The light thus read is converted into electric signals in accordance with a photoelectric conversion and are recorded on sheets of recording paper by a printer or similar device.
With such copying apparatus, however, writing was only placed on a single panel, and such writing had to be erased prior to other writing being placed on the panel.
Additionally, only images on the panel could be copied, and normal originals could not be copied.
Where a reader was employed, the pick-up element, printer and other structure were needed, thus making the cost high. Further, the image recorded by the printer was not formed by clear and fine inclined and curved lines. More particularly, the inclined and curved lines of the copies were formed only by a gathering of dots, i.e., the outline of the inclined or curved lines was not densely filled with dots, but was instead provided in a step-like fashion, thus making it difficult to read the letters, numbers and other characters which were recorded.